UNPUBLISHED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT No. 16-6332 OSIEL RODRIGUEZ, Petitioner - Appellant, v. CHARLES RATLEDGE, Respondent - Appellee. No. 17-6301 OSIEL RODRIGUEZ, Petitioner - Appellant, v. CHARLES RATLEDGE, Respondent - Appellee. _______________ Appeals from the United States District Court for the Western District of Virginia, at Roanoke. Norman K. Moon, Senior District Judge. (7:15-cv-00082-NKM-RSB; 7:15- cv-00684-NKM-RSB) Argued: September 12, 2017 Decided: November 29, 2017 Before NIEMEYER, DUNCAN, and FLOYD, Circuit Judges. Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion. ARGUED: Michael Randolph Shebelskie, HUNTON & WILLIAMS LLP, Richmond, Virginia, for Appellant. Joseph W.H. Mott, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Roanoke, Virginia, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: William H. Wright, Jr., HUNTON & WILLIAMS LLP, Richmond, Virginia, for Appellant. Rick A. Mountcastle, Acting United States Attorney, Mitchell A. Hanson, Third Year Law Intern, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Roanoke, Virginia, for Appellee. Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit. 2 PER CURIAM: Appellant Osiel Rodriguez filed two petitions for writs of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2241 claiming that prison disciplinary proceedings violated his due process rights and challenging his transfer from United States Penitentiary, Lee County, to a maximum security facility. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of Appellee, Warden Christopher Zych, on the grounds that Rodriguez failed to exhaust his administrative remedies prior to filing his first habeas petition and that Rodriguez’s second petition challenging his transfer did not constitute a cognizable or actionable due process violation. Rodriguez appeals, arguing that his failure to exhaust administrative remedies should be excused, that his habeas petitions are cognizable, and that his due process rights were violated. We hold that although Rodriguez’s failure to exhaust is excusable, his cognizable claims do not constitute a due process violation. For the foregoing reason, we affirm the district court’s grant of summary judgment. I. Osiel Rodriguez is a federal inmate. While incarcerated in United States Penitentiary, Lee County (“USP Lee”), Rodriguez was charged with two disciplinary code violations―attempted escape and attempted introduction of narcotics. The charges were memorialized in an incident report dated November 19, 2014 (“incident report”). The incident report accused Rodriguez of planning to escape from USP Lee by assuming the identity of another inmate, Marcos Ramos, who was to be released to the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The incident report also alleged that Rodriguez 3 propositioned Ramos to purchase Suboxone, a narcotic pain reliever, from a drug store in Mexico on Rodriguez’s behalf. Rodriguez appeared at a disciplinary hearing (“first hearing”) before a Disciplinary Hearing Officer (DHO). Rodriguez was found guilty of attempted introduction of narcotics, but the attempted escape charge was dismissed. At the hearing, the presiding DHO sanctioned Rodriguez to 30 days of disciplinary segregation, six months without phone privileges, six months’ suspension of visitation rights, and 41 days’ disallowance of good conduct time. After the hearing, but before any formal report on the hearing was issued, the DHO noticed a typographical error in the initial incident report. ...
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